


Too Much

by crystalkei



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26517685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalkei/pseuds/crystalkei
Summary: Devi thinks maybe she has too much baggage for Paxton to want to be with her.
Relationships: Paxton Hall-Yoshida/Devi Vishwakumar
Comments: 5
Kudos: 63





	Too Much

**Author's Note:**

> This is a product of a someone sending me a prompt on tumblr because why not? This is just my life now. It's fine. I'm fine.

The morning was dragging. Paxton was sitting in English lit, a class he didn’t usually hate, but could not keep his attention on the teacher. Sure, he never was perfectly attentive, but lit wasn’t that bad. Mrs. Polk was an older lady with big coke bottle glasses and a hefty collection of scarves but she never called on him when he wasn’t paying attention to embarrass him in front of the class and she even told him that his papers had a “conversational feel” that she enjoyed so it wasn’t the worst class. If he had favorite classes, it might be up there. 

They were covering  _ The Scarlet Letter _ and he’d watched  _ Easy A _ enough times to get the point so Paxton checked out and was mentally in that warm spot reliving that time last fall when he actually got to kiss Devi Vishwakumar. It’s not like it was on constant repeat in his mind, he tried to save it for particularly boring moments. But in the last month or so it came up a lot because she was always around. Or he was always close to her. 

They did another group project together in history and then she convinced him to go to Fabiola’s underground robot fight club (it was a short lived event because it turned out nerds were deeply attached to their robots and cried when other robots hurt theirs but it was fun) and he’d started sitting with her at lunch more often using the robot thing and his questions for Fab as an excuse. But sitting next to Devi, putting his leg close enough that her’s touched his, that was a really good thing. He liked it. It was nice. And Devi told funny stories about wild stuff that happened in class and how she got herself into these ridiculous situations and then how she got out of them. He loved listening to her tell stories. 

She kept ending up in his space a lot more at school. Or he kept ending up in hers. He didn’t really know who was doing what but he was very into it and he was hoping that eventually their hangouts might end in more kissing because he really liked her. 

Mrs. Polk went on about Hester Prynne and Paxton looked at the clock as he rubbed his thumb across his pointer, thinking about how he held Devi’s chin when he kissed her and how her skin was smooth. She smelled like chlorine from the pool she’d fallen in and that was definitely a thing that was stuck in his brain now whenever he was in the pool...which was bad because he was a swimmer. He was in the pool a lot. 

He stretched his arms above his head and sighed, looking over his shoulder just for something to do, when he saw a flash of Devi through the glass on the back door of the classroom. He looked at the clock again, still 20 minutes of class left, so he raised his hand, asked to go to the bathroom, discreetly picked up his bag so he wouldn’t have to come back, and slipped out the back door. 

Devi was standing at her locker, hiding almost, behind the metal locker door, and that didn’t seem right. By the time he made it to where she was, he could see her eyes were puffy and instantly, he was on guard.    
  
“What’s going on?” he asked, gently as he could, when he really wanted to ask if he should be shoving someone in a locker on her behalf. He'd love an excuse to shove Ben Gross into a locker.

Devi swiped furiously at her cheeks and gave him a fake smile. “I’m fine, no big, uh, allergies.” 

Paxton looked around, they still had plenty of time before the bell would ring and the halls would fill so it seemed reasonable to press her a little. He reached into the side pocket of his backpack and handed her a travel tissue pouch his mom was always putting in his bag. She looked at him sort of skittish (now he was really concerned) and took the tissue to wipe her eyes. 

“Are you sure?” He asked, leaning against the locker. 

She hesitated and bit her lip, not that he was looking at her lips. Okay, he was. They were very soft and he had just been thinking about kissing her minutes ago, he was only human.    
  
“I, uh, I had to miss fourth for a doctor’s appointment,” Devi said cautiously, “Well, not a doctor’s appointment, a therapy appointment. I usually have them after school but there was a scheduling thing and it’s stupid anyways and half the time when I leave therapy now I’ve sobbed like a baby because it’s exhausting to talk about hard stuff and feel all those dumb feelings and…” she trailed off and looked away. 

“Are you embarrassed that you go to therapy?” he asked, moving his head to try and look her in the eyes. “Because therapy is normal. I went to therapy for like a year in the sixth grade and Trent had this kickass therapist that helped him through his parents’ divorce. Therapy is chill. I mean, it’s not  _ chill _ . You’re right, it can be exhausting, but it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. And your dad straight up died. Therapy seems like a good call.” 

Devi let out a little laugh, but it sounded like she might cry again, she smiled anyway and sniffed. Then took another tissue from the pack and looked in her locker mirror, running the tissue under her eyes to clear the smudge of mascara that the tears caused. 

“I just…,” she took a deep breath and turned back to him. “Are you just being nice? Do you really mean that?”

“No, I mean it,” Paxton said quickly, but then he took a second to process what she’d said. “I wouldn’t say something just to be nice, well, okay yeah, maybe I would. But that’s because I  _ want _ to be nice to you. I like you. Like last week you said something about Doja Cat and I said she was cool even though that one song is entirely overplayed but what difference does it make? What’s wrong with me wanting to be nice to you?” 

Devi tilted her head a little confused, but she smiled so he’d take it. 

“I don’t think we should hang out anymore,” she said, her smile fell and he couldn’t breathe like the time he took a soccer ball to the gut and had the wind knocked out of him. 

“What?” He stood up straight. A minute ago he thought he might take her hand to make her feel better and now this? “Did I do something wrong?”

She closed her eyes and he saw a few more tears fall and he couldn’t help it, even confused, he reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek gently. She leaned into his hand and he really didn’t understand what was happening. Devi was saying one thing and then acting like that. It was weird. She opened her eyes and sniffed again, brushing at the tears on her face. 

“Shit, no, like not at all. Ever. Except maybe that Doja Cat thing you just admitted to.” She gave him a watery laugh and then looked down, defeated. 

“Can I get a little context as to why you don’t want to be my friend anymore then?” Paxton asked, desperate for something he could fix to make this not be a thing. The last thing he wanted was to not be Devi’s friend. And he thought they were working towards more than friends so what was this about?

“I’m too much.” She looked up at him briefly and then looked away again. 

“Too much?” Paxton couldn’t imagine what she meant because he wanted all the Devi he could get. 

“You’ve already had to rescue me a bunch of times and I come with all this baggage and I cry about my dad way more than when I was just pretending it wasn’t real,” Devi took a breath and opened her mouth like she’d keep going but he couldn’t let her. 

“Who told you that? Because I’ve never actually been in a fight but I’d like to punch anyone who said that to you.” 

Her face was all scrunched up but it looked like she’d stopped crying at least, and she looked at him, searching his face. 

“Nobody said that to me, except me, I guess. I’m too much.” Devi frowned and Paxton shook his head. “The Devi at lunch or at school, that’s a big part of me, right? But there’s all these other parts of me. The funky feeling in my stomach when an ambulance goes by and the way my mom pinches my legs, terrified they’re gonna stop working again when I’m stressed. Who would want to be friends with that Devi?” 

Paxton raised his arm in the air, hand up.    
  
“What are you doing?” she asked, confused. 

“Oh, sorry, I was answering your question. I was raising my hand. I want to be friends with that Devi.” Paxton said confidently, hoping that would convince her. “I’d like to be more than friends with that Devi. The whole Devi. All the parts.”    
  
Devi smiled, sort of pitiful, but she smiled so he put his hand down.    
  
“You’re not too much,” he lowered his voice, and took her hand. He ran his thumb across the back of it while she looked up at him through her lashes, eyes unsure. “Here’s me telling you that you’re not too much. If somebody thinks you’re too much, maybe they’re just not enough?”

“That’s cheesy as hell,” she said, but there wasn’t any sting in her words. She reached for his cheek with her free hand, her thumb brushed across his lips and Paxton tried not to get carried away. He wanted to kiss her but she was having a moment and he would follow her lead. “It doesn’t bother you? That I’m too much? That I’m like this?” 

“Why don’t you let me decide what I can and can’t handle,” he answered. “I like you. If I can’t convince you otherwise, then fuck, I guess I like you being too much.” 

A smile bloomed on her face, it started on her left side, that’s where her smiles always started, yes, he knew that, no, he didn’t have time to be embarrassed by it because she was leaning in. She pressed her lips to his and he sighed like he was finally where he was supposed to be. Every other girl he’d ever kissed? Didn’t hold a candle to Devi. He thought maybe he’d just convinced himself of that after it happened the first time, he thought in his crush addled brain he’d imagined it, but no, she was still the best kiss he’d ever had. Her lips were softer, her skin was smoother, she made this little whimpering noise when he moved his tongue against hers. This was the only person he wanted to kiss. Right here. 

The bell rang and people started to pour into the halls, but Devi didn’t let go of his face and he didn’t open his eyes. She kept her lips on his until people started to hoot and holler around them and some poor kid needed to get to the locker next to hers. When she finally pulled away, she hid in the curve of his neck and giggled. He felt her breath against the skin there and he liked it. 

Paxton liked all of her. 


End file.
